Shanghai - A driver hit a pedestrian with a car before stabbing him on a downtown street in Wenzhou, a city in East China's Zhejiang province.

Witnesses of the crash said they thought the driver was trying to copy Yao Jiaxin, a university student who was executed in Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi province, in June for hitting a young mother with a car and then stabbing her to death to prevent her from turning him into the authorities.

After the incident in Wenzhou on Wednesday morning, netizens began to circulate pictures of that crash online and to discuss the similarities between that attack and the one perpetrated by Yao.

A witness surnamed Yang said the driver in Wenzhou seemed determined to hurt the pedestrian, hitting him twice and then trying to knock down the construction materials store where his victim was trying to hide.

"The front window of the car was broken and the car was badly dented," said Yang. "The two were covered in blood and fought for several minutes. The driver did not stop despite several people shouting at him. So I decided to leave to prevent him from hurting me too."

Yang said many witnesses believed the driver was trying to copy Yao, who had hit a 26-year-old waitress in October with a car and then stabbed her eight times out of a fear that she would remember the number of his license plate and report him to the police. Yao was executed on June 8.

On Wednesday, the shopkeeper at the construction materials store, surnamed Li, persuaded the driver to stop attacking the pedestrian with a knife. Warning the driver he might be executed for what he was doing, the shopkeeper was told: "I no longer want to live".

Even after witnesses had called the police, the driver in the attack remained at the scene.

The injured pedestrian was sent to the hospital immediately after officers arrived, according to Hangzhou Daily.

The police later learned that the driver and the pedestrian knew each other before the incident, according to the Wenzhou police.

The driver was a 31-year-old man surnamed Peng who hails from Wenzhou. The victim was a young man surnamed Xu, who lives in East China's Jiangsu province, said Wenzhou police.

Peng told the police that he suspected his wife was having an affair with Xu. He said he wanted to get revenge on Xu by hitting him with his car.

On Wednesday morning, Peng sat in his car, waiting to ambush Xu. He struck Xu just as he was crossing the street, according to Wenzhou police.

Peng was detained by authorities on Wednesday. Xu was listed as being in a stable condition in the hospital and was in very little danger of dying from his injuries.

"Thank God this was not meant to copy (Yao's) decision to stab someone after hitting her with a car," a netizen named Choral Gu wrote on a micro blog. "I would no longer dare to walk on the streets if similar cases started happening in my hometown."

"Obviously, Yao Jiaxin's case has made people more fearful of getting into traffic accidents," said Cheng Tao, a Wenzhou resident. "This has cast a shadow on the lives of many people because it has worsened their feelings of insecurity."